How come the explanations offered for declining trust in media never seem to include the media demonstrably, provably getting things wrong in a way that logically ought to weaken trust?
Exactly. We all love a fun epistemological debate about truth and objectivity. But the whole field of journalism, first in academia and then in practice, used such philosophical questions to then intentionally abandoned the goals of objectivity. Today searching for objective journalism yields only articles about how it's a myth and there never was such a thing.
Sure, we all understand that biases exist and perfect objectivity can never be achieved. But today schools and newsrooms teach journalism as advocacy for causes and effecting change, and no longer even aim for objectivity.
Are we really surprised or disappointed that people finally figured out that they're being preached to, not informed, by most modern "journalism?"
> What is worse they admit it, even have systems for correcting errors publicly
Errors, even lies, happen, but they are negligible compared to the most powerful tool of propaganda: cherrypicking. E.g. the otherwise thorough NYT reporting on air traffic controller shortages [1] entirely omitted the FAA diversity hiring scandal that disqualified applicants with top grades if they weren't diverse enough [2]. During COVID, the credible experts were happily making models of how many deaths a motorcycle rally caused [3], but when it came time to do the same for BLM, we instead got "Protest Is a Profound Public Health Intervention" [4]. This is not an outlier - social scientists have been turning a blind eye to results they dislike since at least 1985 [5].
[5] The authors also submitted different test studies to different peer-review boards. The methodology was identical, and the variable was that the purported findings either went for, or against, the liberal worldview (for example, one found evidence of discrimination against minority groups, and another found evidence of "reverse discrimination" against straight white males). Despite equal methodological strengths, the studies that went against the liberal worldview were criticized and rejected, and those that went with it were not. - from https://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bi..., citing the study "Human subjects review, personal values, and the regulation of social science research.": https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1986-12806-001
I agree, the "mainstream media", if that is what we are talking about, is far from perfect.
But I don't think it has ever been without the issues you describe.
The best solution has always been to combine several (or more) of the best overall sources - despite, and with familiarity of, their individual bents/limitations.
The "mainstream" media is still dramatically better than the "alternative" crowd. Whose followers are ironically uncritical, despite generally being more problematic.
A few cherry-picked examples seems like a really weird way to try and prove cherry-picking is happening, much less establish "cherry picking has become worse since a certain date"
Sure, we all understand that biases exist and perfect objectivity can never be achieved. But today schools and newsrooms teach journalism as advocacy for causes and effecting change, and no longer even aim for objectivity.
Are we really surprised or disappointed that people finally figured out that they're being preached to, not informed, by most modern "journalism?"